


Crows

by CreamofTomatoSoup



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Birds, M/M, Modern AU, abuse mention, church camp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6900220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreamofTomatoSoup/pseuds/CreamofTomatoSoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I cannot even begin to tell you how many rules you're breaking.”</p><p>“Oh good, I didn't want to hear it.”</p><p>---</p><p>Takumi finds a bird egg.  Leo has a crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I cannot even _begin_ to tell you how many rules you're breaking.”

“Oh good, I didn't want to hear it.”

Leo bites back the first scathing reply that came to mind. The dry air is already burning his throat. Sunburn has settled like an overly warm blanket behind his face. The soaring trees, in complete defiance of logic, make almost no shade.

“We're going to be late to dinner,” he tries.

The leaves ruffled overhead as his companion does.... whatever he does in trees. Kiss owls.

Takumi pops out from the tangle of leaves and branches, grinning like a maniac. His silver hair tumbles around his head. “This is _better_ than dinner.”

“No it's not,” Leo mutters.

“Prick.”

“Owl kisser.”

“What?”

Leo coughs, backpedaling. “It's not better than dinner.”

Takumi, bless whatever cosmic being ruled the universe, jumps tracks immediately. He scowls. “Yes it is! I'll prove it! Hold on, just another minute.”

He disappears back into the branches. Leo ponders if his friend has ADHD. Would his family take him to be diagnosed? Takumi's mom seemed nice enough when she dropped him off at camp, mellow and sweet, but she was dropping him off at church camp, and there's a lot to be said for that and disconnect with reality.

Maybe he's judging harshly. He's biased; he's only here because Father seemed to think it would be good for his sense of discipline.

Leo ponders briefly if he could hide Father's body in the woods.

Nah.

“Got it!” Takumi materializes between the branches again, looking absurdly pleased with himself. He's holding something cupped in his hand, close to his chest, like a treasure, or an injured bird.

“Got what?”

Takumi lets go. Leo's heart catches in his throat and his eyes fly wide open and _Takumi's falling-_

He lands like a cat and stands easily. Leo tries not to look like he just had a small heart attack.

“Got this,” Takumi smiles, and huddles close to Leo- _uncomfortably close, and Leo's not big on physical contact, not like Elise or Camilla, and Takumi's hair tickles and stirs under his breath and Leo wonders if the other boy can feel the warmth from Leo's blood starting to burn under his skin_ \- and he holds his find out for Leo to see.

It's a bird egg. 

“A bird egg,” Leo deadpans, “Is better than dinner.”

Takumi scowls. “It's a crow egg! They're one of the smartest birds in the world. We can train him to steal stuff for us!”

“A bird egg.”

“An investment,” Takumi replies flatly. Leo forgets that Takumi's actually really smart and knows smart words.

“You stole a bird egg,” Leo says. “How do we even know it's gonna hatch? Is this legal?”

“He's healthy,” Takumi says. He doesn't answer the other questions, Leo notices. “We can call him... Call him... Kiragi!”

“Kiragi?” Leo asks. He's fairly certain he butchers Takumi's native language. The eggs sits in Takumi's palm, flecked and blue. “It sounds like the stuff your brother shouts when he's catching fish.”

Takumi scowls. “What would you call him, then?”

Leo sputters for a moment, glancing around for something to help him. “Forest.”

Takumi gives him a disbelieving look.

“Forrest with two R's.”

“You have no imagination.”

“I didn't steal a bird egg.”

“I didn't _steal_ him!” Takumi defends. “We're _adopting_ him. There's a difference!”

“We?”

“We,” Takumi says firmly. “The nest is abandoned, and I can't take care of a crow by myself. They need too much attention.”

Leo struggles to find an appropriate counterargument. Like, there's no way the camp counselors will let us keep it, and how will we be sure it hatches, and shouldn't we just drop it off at a wildlife rescue somewhere, and don't you know the kind of things people will say if you keep saying we're adopting?

“Is this legal?” he tries again, weakly.

Takumi frowns at him, which answers his question. “Does it matter?”

Leo opens his mouth to say yes before he remembers his casual plans to bury Father in the woods. He frowns and considers.

“... Ye-es?”

Takumi rolls his eyes. “C'mon,” he says, and then he places the egg in Leo's hands.

Leo almost drops it, he's so unprepared. The egg is the size of a marble. It seems so very small in the palm of his hand, warm, and light. Leo feels strangely sweaty and a little bit in awe and like if he moves too fast something important will break. He holds very, very still.

“Cool, right?” Takumi asks, looking pleased.

“Uh.” Leo can't find words for a moment. He recovers. “Yes. Yes. Very cool.” He sounds like an idiot.

“Yeah.” Takumi grins, and then he picks the egg up gently again, to Leo's mixed relief and disappointment. He gives it a small smile, and he looks soft in the sunlight, silvery hair tumbling around his shoulders, eyelashes pale and feathery. He'd make a good dad for a bird, Leo thinks.

“We can train him to eat the eyes of our enemies,” Takumi adds.

A terrible dad for a bird, Leo corrects, but an excellent military general.

“And to steal your sister's earrings,” Takumi continues. He nudges Leo briefly, the kind of shoulder bump friends do. His shoulder is firm with muscle beneath his shirt sleeve, unlike Leo, who's constructed entirely of bones and height. The taller boy's arm tingles where Takumi's skin touched him. Leo might have a serious problem. “If we get back before dinner we can hide him in your bag.”

“We're probably missing dinner,” Leo offers, still trying to get his words back under his control.

Takumi swears and pushes Leo in the direction of the hiking trail. Leo fights the natural impulse to shove him back and starts backpedaling awkwardly.

“We're going to be awful parents,” he adds.

“Probably,” says Takumi. He offers the bird egg out again. “Want to carry him?”

“... Sure.”

Kiragi _(Forrest?)_ is warm in his palm.


	2. Naptime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wonder if we can pick the snot out of his nose for him,” says Takumi.
> 
> There's a faint rhythmic pulse between Kiragi's shell and Leo's hand. Leo wonders if eggs have a noticeable heartbeat, or if he's feeling his own pulse echoing against the curve of the egg.
> 
> “I mean, I have a fishing hook,” says Takumi.
> 
> \---
> 
> Leo cuddles Kiragi. Gunter is an awful snorer.

Leo's left wrist is a little crooked, with a larger hollow than usual between the base of his thumb and the start of his arm, where Father had tugged on him too hard once. Kiragi fits perfectly there, warm and smooth, nestled between Leo's wrist and the sheets.

“I wonder if we can pick the snot out of his nose for him,” says Takumi.

There's a faint rhythmic pulse between Kiragi's shell and Leo's hand. Leo wonders if eggs have a noticeable heartbeat, or if he's feeling his own pulse echoing against the curve of the egg.

“I mean, I have a fishing hook,” says Takumi.

Leo blinks and looks up at his companion. The shorter boy is sitting on the bunk above him, kicking his feet and glaring at where their counselor is snoring like a chainsaw. 

It's naptime, which means all the adults in the camp are dead to the world and all the teenagers are sneaking out. It's late afternoon, the air is boiling outside, and inside the room is deadly quiet with the exception of a lone mosquito hawk fluttering around the lamp. Ryouma and Xander are probably on the prowl outside, but they're too busy trying to out-do each other at making teenage-safe human traps for them to be any real threat. The only person who's been caught by them is Odin, who spouted theatrics for so long that another counselor came to cut him down.

Usually the cabin is empty around this time except for Takumi and Leo, which Leo is completely fine with. So fine with. Terribly fine with.

“Isn't it Ryoma's fishing hook?” Leo asks.

 _“Ryou_ ma,” Takumi corrects absentmindedly, and Leo curses and tries to memorize the sounds. Ryou-ma. Ryoouuuu- ma. “Well. I can steal a fishing hook.”

Leo could say _That seems mean_ or _he's our counselor_ or _Gunter's not that bad, c'mon,_ but he just. Doesn't feel like it. Everything seems too warm and slow and easy, and Kiragi is nestled so softly in his arm, and the jittery, bubbly part of his brain has quieted for once. 

“I don't think a fishing hook would work,” he says instead.

Takumi looks at him. Earlier in the summer he might have taken Leo's comment to be an attack, and earlier in the summer Leo might have meant it as one, but now Leo just means to share his thoughts and Takumi just looks at him with open curiosity. His eyes are amber.

“Well, it'd be too sharp,” Leo fumbles, looking at Kiragi's shell. It's flecked and very pretty. “And it's too curved. We wouldn't be able to get anything out.”

Takumi shifts above him, antsy, his eyes flicking to the ceiling like he's lost in thought. “His nose is kinda crooked, though,” he says like he's attached to the idea.

“It's not _that_ crooked,” Leo says.

Takumi kicks his legs for a few more seconds, then sighs. “Yeah.”

It's quiet. The air may be roasting outside, but it's bearably cool inside, enough that Leo feels like he could probably sleep if he felt like it. The sunlight is slanting through the open door, filtering in through the windows, painting stripes against Takumi's face and chest. Dust motes are dancing in the light, bright and gold. They're not quite the same shade as Takumi's eyes, but if Leo screws up his eyes and unfocuses his vision a bit, it's close enough to look like floating baubles of light, or like the warm yellow lanterns Takumi's sister sometimes hangs in the dining lodge.

“Maybe a paperclip,” Takumi says.

He's restless, Leo realizes, then immediately feels stupid for not noticing earlier. Just because Leo's relaxed for once doesn't mean others are, and Leo should have known that Takumi especially wouldn't be content sitting still. Takumi wasn't content unless he was rock climbing, or something equally stupid.

Leo shifts but stills when Kiragi rocks gently against his wrist. The egg is so very delicate and for a moment Leo is unshakably certain that he's going to crush him somehow, but Takumi's foot swings through the air and leaves a trail of air behind it, like the aftermath of a breath, and the feeling of it stirring up Leo's hair is somehow enough to calm him.

His eyes land on Niles' backpack. He gets a horrible idea.

“There's lockpicks,” he suggests.

Takumi pauses in his foot swinging to give him an incredulous look.

“Niles has some,” says Leo.

“Oh my God,” Takumi says. “Of course he does.”

His tone makes Leo feel a little sick inside, but Niles and Takumi have never really gotten along, so he tells himself that they are very different people and not all of Leo's friends can get along with each other. Even though he has only three of them. And even though Takumi is basically Leo without filters.

“He's not so bad, you know,” Leo says anyway.

Takumi huffs, but doesn't argue. He slips off his seat, dropping from the top bunk as easily as if he was hopping off a countertop. Leo's heart leaps into his throat in terror like it always does, and Takumi lands lightly and perfectly like he always does. One day Leo's going to have to tell Takumi how much of a heart attack that gives him.

“Which pocket?” Takumi asks, sorting through Niles' backpack with absolutely no shame.

“Front left,” says Leo. He touches Kiragi lightly with one finger and tells the egg, “Your father's awful.”

“What?” asks Takumi, sorting through the front left pocket of Niles' backpack.

“Front left,” Leo repeats.

“No, after that-” Takumi stops, grinning, holding up the silvery gleam of metal picks, and Leo thanks the cosmic all-powerful might-not-exist being that his friend has a very one-track mind. “Never mind, found them.”

“Well done, sir,” Leo says, and Takumi waves off his sarcasm to tiptoe up to Gunter.

The shorter boy's hair has turned a funny grayed out gold in the sunlight, flicking liquid over his shoulder. Leo wonders if anyone has ever called him feminine because of it. He doubts it, really; Takumi is built squared off and strong, with a stronger chin than Leo's androgynous face and more toned arms. 

But Elise's friend- Effie, Leo thinks her name is- is built like a tank, and she is definitely very feminine. She looks good in dresses, when she doesn't rip the sleeves and sides on accident, so muscular arms can't be that masculine.

Except Leo really has no idea how femininity and masculinity work anyway, especially since Odin runs about in revealing clothing and Leo has definitely seen Niles in heels at least once. Sure, he's got a good hold of the concepts of traditional masculinity and femininity, but he's seen too many things outside that norm to really know anything anymore, or to know if it matters.

At least it consoles him when he remembers that his brother is built like the cover of a swim magazine. Xander has muscles that someone could pick out with an anatomy chart, and Leo's stuck in some awful teenage stage between juvenile and adult, with a gangly, bony, body and jutting edges and a soft face. 

Kiragi tips over slowly and bumps his thumb. Leo startles out of his thoughts.

“Sorry,” he whispers to Kiragi. He knows that he just shifted at some point and loosened his hold on the egg, letting him tip over, but it's nice to pretend that Kiragi would bump him to get him out of his head.

“Uh,” says Takumi, somehow crouched right next to their bunk, and Leo nearly jumps out of his skin. “We should go.”

“What?” asks Leo, trying to breathe normally, and _good universal cosmic being,_ why couldn't Takumi make _sound_ when he moved, like normal people?

Takumi looks at him with horribly guilty eyes. He's no longer holding Niles' lockpicks. Gunter is still snoring. “We should really, really go. Like, right now.”

Leo stares at him. “Why? What happened?”

Gunter snorts and mumbles in his sleep. He sounds even more congested than he was a minute ago. Some awful, awful thought starts to nag at the back of Leo's mind.

“Where are Niles' picks,” he asks slowly.

Takumi fiddles with his hands and looks away, not meeting his eyes.

Gunter snorts and snores a long, whistling breath through one nostril, like the other has been clogged nearly shut.

“No,” says Leo, because no. No way.

“He'll wake up any minute,” Takumi says desperately. “It's only one of them-”

“No way,” Leo says flatly.

Takumi gives him that deer-eyed look, the one that's wide eyed and frightened and unfairly disturbing on his face. “Please.”

Leo stares at him for another minute before he manages to collect his senses and recognize that, yes, it might be best if they weren't here when Gunter woke up.

“I can't believe you,” Leo hisses, gathering Kiragi up and scrambling to his feet.

“C'mon, c'mon,” Takumi replies urgently, grabbing the book Leo's been reading from his bunk and shoving it against his chest. The gesture warms Leo's heart, not that he's ever going to tell Takumi that, ever.

“I can't _believe_ you.”

“Shut up, it was an accident-”

They make it out just before Gunter snorts behind them and says “...wha' in my age- oh-” and manage to slip off into the thicker parts of the trees around the edges of camp. They both forgot their shoes, so Leo spends the rest of naptime hopping around in the underbrush swearing while Takumi runs lightly over the ground as naturally as if his feet weren't stepping barefoot on rocks and twigs.

Leo decides he hates Takumi. At least he has Kiragi.

\---

That night, halfway through dinner, Gunter makes a face, rocks back and forth a little, and right in front of the entire camp, sneezes a lockpick.


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo kicks a rock and immediately regrets it. Now not only is he lost, but his toes hurt too.
> 
> \---
> 
> Leo gets lost. Takumi is a master tracker.

Leo kicks a rock and immediately regrets it. Now not only is he lost, but his toes hurt too.

“This is stupid,” he tells his jacket pocket, before he remembers that he left Kiragi with Takumi back at the meadow. He directs his thoughts to the air instead. “So stupid.”

His toes sting. The wind ruffles his hair. No one answers him, which makes perfect sense, since he's managed to lose an entire camp of screaming teenagers playing Capture-the-Flag.

It's not his fault. Definitely not his fault. It's just, well, one of the counselors thought he had been spending too much time with Takumi, and decided to put them on separate teams so they could “make some new friends!” And Leo might have decided to sneak off into the trees because, well, Takumi wasn't there to pull him into trouble, and the team captains always gave him guard duty cause he sucked at athletics anyway, and so he was stuck sulking by a rock near the Dawn team's border while mosquitoes ate him and his campmates howled and screamed and used any excuse to tackle each other into the dirt. Leo had no doubt Takumi was having the time of his life, but Leo had forgotten his book. He was tired, and bored, and maybe a little bit stung from being robbed of his friend, and so he had wandered off into the woods to sulk in private.

Except now he can't find his way back.

The trees sway overhead. The ground beneath his feet seems to be getting rockier. The air is getting cooler. Leo really, really wishes he had stuck with being bored on guard duty.

“I'm lost,” he says to no one, because the jittery, antsy feeling is back under his skin again and talking sometimes soothes it. His muscles feel like worming electric eels. He bites his lip and tries to tell the trees apart.

“I'm not lost,” he says, in case it helps. It doesn't really.

Leo bites the inside of his cheek and glances up again. The trees are unchanged. He swallows, looks around, finds a direction that looks vaguely uphill, and starts walking.

He wonders if anyone's noticed his absence. Takumi was probably swinging through the trees like a monkey with his other loud friend- Hineta? And his other sullen friend was probably at it tooth and nails with Niles. Leo wouldn't trust Odin to notice anything less than a fullscale explosion, so that was out. Xander was probably trying to organize his campers to beat Ryouma's; Camilla was probably preoccupied with Corrin, Elise was probably just as into the game as Takumi. All the counselors Leo didn't know were probably busy with- something else. Whatever adults did. Leo couldn't imagine any of them would particularly care.

He wishes someone were here with him.

The breeze tugs at his hair, like fingers ruffling his head. Leo closes his eyes and pretends it's a person, like a benevolent ghost, or something like that. Takumi would probably be terrified of it.

Something screeches. Leo screams.

It's a bird on the ground. Leo pants, staring and clutching his chest like an old lady, on the edge of hyperventilating. It stares back, looking startled.

“Sorry,” Leo wheezes. He rubs his chest to help soothe his wild pulse, and the antsy-almost control he has over his muscles turns it into the ASL sign for _sorry._ Funny the way the world works. “What are you doing on the ground?”

He's talking to a bird. He needs to stop.

The bird makes a sound somewhere between a chainsaw and teakettle. It must be a crow, Leo thinks because it's making all the right angry sounds, but it's got some white to it, like a crow got cold and pulled on a little old lady nightgown. Can crows have white on them? Is this something Takumi would know?

It's dragging one wing on the ground, crooked abnormally. The bird looks up at him with a dark, wide eye.

Leo's stomach sinks.

“Oh no,” he blurts, “I already _have_ a kid!”

It gives him a long look, then turns and starts slowly hopping away. It couldn't have said _Well don't mind me then_ if it had cawed it in his face.

“No, no wait,” Leo says, rubbing at his eyes, trotting after the bird, and he really needs to watch what he says. He's turning into Takumi. “I'm just anxious, it's turning me into a mess. C'mere-”

It puffs up and screeches, running away faster on its little legs. It looks like an angry tap dancer, or a sped up version of the can-can. Leo would laugh, but he's not sure he wouldn't curl up and cry afterwards, so he pounces instead. Predictably, he swallows dirt.

The bird makes a funny noise, like a hyena laughing.

“Shut up,” Leo mumbles. The bird hops in a little circle not far from his out stretched hands, unable to take off with its broken wing, so he curls himself up slowly, trying not to tick off the bird to what he's doing. “I'd like to see you catch something the size of your hand- wing- whatever.”

The bird caws again, like _I'm a bird, I catch insects all the time,_ and Leo seriously needs to stop imagining what the bird would say if it could talk. He leaps forward instead and this time manages to pin the bird awkwardly to the ground.

It screams and writhes, so suddenly that Leo almost lets go of it. Instead he manages to gather it up into his hands. “Shh, it's okay, it's okay, I'm trying to help. You're gonna be okay-”

It pecks him hard on his thumb. He yelps but keeps his grip. “You're evil.”

He's never held a bird before, Leo realizes. It's a lot lighter than he expected, and pointier. He can feel the bones and the bird's claws are pricking his skin. He doesn't think he's carrying it right.

“Sorry,” he tells it again. “Takumi would be better at this.”

The bird squawks, but seems to be calming down. It wriggles its good wing, seems to conclude that it can't free itself, and opts to freeze almost entirely instead.

“Now you're scaring me,” Leo tells the bird. It doesn't respond, so Leo huffs, bunching his shoulders like that might soothe his fidgets, and starts hiking up the hill again.

“So, I'm Leo,” he says conversationally. “And you are?”

The bird remains frozen stiff. Leo gently strokes its belly feathers as much as he can without loosening his grip.

“Well, I'll call you Forrest, then,” Leo says, “Mostly because it'll make Takumi mad. He makes hilarious faces when he's mad.”

Forrest chirps. It sounds exactly like it's asking a question.

“Yeah, really funny faces,” says Leo. He glances side to side, even though he's been completely alone and lost for at least an hour, and adds an a conspiratorial whisper, “Don't tell him I said this, but he looks exactly like a frog.”

Forrest twitches its head side to side, so Leo adds, “Like this,” and stretches his face in an exaggerated pout. “I can't beli-eve you!” he mimicks.

Forrest makes the funny hyena laugh, cackling madly in his fingers like a tiny supervillian. Leo decides he likes Forrest. He grins.

“Oh, yeah, and one time he stole a bow and was trying to shoot the underwear off the laundry lines...”

Leo and Forrest wind deeper into the trees, chattering to each other, anxiety slowly easing out of Leo. This is good, he thinks. He should pick up a bird everytime he gets hopelessly lost.

\---

“You have no idea what you're doing.”

“Shut up, I know exactly what I'm doing.”

“Please, my fellow rescuers, do not aggravate each other on this long and dangerous quest! For if we cannot-”

“Shut up, Odin.”

Leo groans and scrubs his eyes open. His back hurts. There's a lump on his chest that's starting to squirm, and it's uncomfortably bony.

Everything's black. For a moment Leo swings his head around wildly, terrified that he's been somehow struck blind, but he catches a glimpse of stars above. Oh, he just fell asleep.

The lump chirps. _Forrest,_ Leo realizes, followed by _I'm still lost?_

“Didja hear that?”

“It came from over here!”

Those voices were familiar. Leo peered into the brush, looking for a light, or a flash of hair. “Takumi...?”

 _“Leo!”_ and a flashlight bursts out from the bushes, nearly blinding Leo. He yelps, and then suddenly he's being swung up into the air by someone much shorter and much stronger than him. “Ha! Found you!”

“Leo!” a voice bellows, and Odin bursts out of the underbrush, followed by a scrambling, fluffy haired boy that Leo vaguely recognizes in this light as Takumi's friend, Hineta. “See, Niles, Takumi's a great tracker!”

“I can't believe you had doubts,” someone else grouches, a female voice, and Leo thinks it might be Takumi's other friend, but he's having a hard time thinking much beyond Takumi's powerful arms locked around his ribcage.

Forrest squeaks and, oh yeah, it- he- is probably being squished. Leo wiggles in Takumi's grip.

“Found you, found you!” Takumi chants. “Ha, oh jeez, dear God, we didn't know where you were and you were gone for so long-”

“The entire camp's in a panic,” Niles says, and Leo didn't realize how badly this whole ordeal has effected him until he sees his best childhood friend and nearly melts from relief. “I had to break your pet out, 'cause Gunter had locked him in the cabin so he wouldn't come looking for you-”

“As if locks have ever stopped our great Niles!” Odin howls, and Hineta grins and elbows him agreeably and oh no those two cannot be friends. Leo will never be able to sleep again. 

“He's not anyone's pet!” the girl yells- Oboros, Leo remembers, because his brain has excellent timing- and in seconds she's tackled Niles to the ground and they're rolling around in the underbush, swearing in Spanish and Japanese. Hineta and Odin, because they're never helpful, start cheering them on.

“Oh, for-” Takumi's hold loosens around Leo's waist, and Leo has to grab his friend's shoulder before the Takumi can turn and try to break up the fight.

Takumi turns to look up at him questionably. The pale light of the flashlight bleaches the color from his face and eyes, turning him unreal, ghostlike. Leo thinks of the wind tugging at his hair.

“I got us another kid,” Leo whispers, and when Takumi gives him a confused look, Leo pulls open his collar and lets Forrest peak his head out.

“Oh,” Takumi says, with wide eyes, “You _caught_ something?”

Leo nods, proud, before he registers he should probably be offended. “... What's that supposed to mean?”

“And a magpie, too!” Takumi continues, completely ignoring Leo's question. He reaches in and strokes Forrest's head, and Forrest, the traitor, chirps agreeably and nuzzles his hand.

You pecked my thumb full of holes, Leo thinks but manages not to say. “His name is Forrest.”

Takumi gives him a disbelieving look. “You did not.”

“I did,” Leo says, smug. He reaches and pets Forrest's head too. “Isn't that right, Forrest?”

Forrest bites his finger. Leo squawks. Takumi snickers.

“I'm surrounded by traitors,” Leo grumbles, but then Takumi pats him condescendingly on the head and, to Leo's mixed delight and horror, wraps his fingers around the loose edge of Leo's sleeve.

“C'mon, we gotta go home,” Takumi tells him seriously. “Your brother was trying to strangle mine when we left.”

Leo tries to imagine his older brother doing anything even remotely undignified. “Xander?” he asks, disbelieving.

Takumi gives him a funny look. “Well, yeah,” he says like it's obvious. “Your sisters were both up in arms too. Camilla nearly punched her counselor in the teeth.”

“Oh,” Leo says, surprised, and feels his cheeks heat up.

Niles and Oboros squabble the rest of the way home, and Odin and Hineta seem to ramp each other up with more and more ludicrous exclamations. The lone flashlight they have between them flickers this way and that, lighting up huge, mysterious trees. Takumi keeps a tight hold on Leo's sweatshirt, like he's scared Leo will get lost again if he lets go. His fingers bump against Leo's elbow. Forrest is warm and squirming on Leo's chest. Leo feels hyperaware of Takumi's presence right beside him, stout and stubborn and concerned.

Through the rest of the long walk home, Leo can feel Forrest's pulse echoing through his small bird body, tiny and fragile and somehow strong, playing double-beat with Leo's own.


	4. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wow,” Takumi mumbles, shifting his feet to better balance himself. “You are definitely your dad's kid.”
> 
> Forrest makes a little burbling sound, perfectly satisfied with his perch. He's somehow managed to attach himself to the ceiling, hanging down like a feathered bat. Takumi is kind of amazed, but mostly worried the tiny thing's gonna fall and break more bones.
> 
> Oh, and that someone might wake up. That too.
> 
> \---
> 
> Takumi is short. Leo sleeps like the dead.

Hiding Kiragi is easy. Hiding Forrest is _not._

“Wow,” Takumi mumbles, shifting his feet to better balance himself. “You are definitely your dad's kid.”

Forrest makes a little burbling sound, perfectly satisfied with his perch. He's somehow managed to attach himself to the ceiling, hanging down like a feathered bat. Takumi is kind of amazed, but mostly worried the tiny thing's gonna fall and break more bones.

Oh, and that someone might wake up. That too.

It's night, in the kind of timeless way where everyone else is asleep, and all their breathing has somehow blended into one, deep, cloudy sound. The moonlight is weak, and makes soft shadows against the walls, the bunk beds, the floor. Takumi's the only one awake, balanced on the headboard of his bed, stretching himself up to try and rescue Leo's little brat from the ceiling.

It's different then what Takumi's used to. At home he wakes up sweaty and strung unnaturally tight, alone in an empty room. Now he wakes up to the soft breathing of people, in a room made warm by their body heat, with Leo curled up just beneath him. Their quiet presence settles something ancient and lonely in Takumi's bones.

Forrest chirps. He sounds like he's got a mouthful of something.

“Oh my God,” Takumi says. He stretches his arm out as far as it can go, keeping his movements slow and gentle, but he's still several inches away. Maybe if he goes on his toes? “You're just as stubborn as him too.”

Forrests makes a churring sound and worms his way further up the sloped ceiling, shifting his claws along the rafter like he's testing to see if it'll hold his weight.

“And as clever,” Takumi acquiesces. He considers his options; he's not sure he can stand on the headboard on just his toes and keep his balance, but he's definitely too short to reach the magpie by himself.

He could wake Leo up?

Takumi chews his lip, considering. Leo's taller than him, by almost half a head; he could probably pluck their kid from the ceiling no problem. But he never really relaxes until he's asleep, which usually wouldn't bother Takumi, but with Leo- he's sort of- he's really tense when he's awake.

It kind of scares Takumi.

Not in a Leo's-scary kind of way. It's just- Leo holds himself tense and nervous. At the beginning of camp Takumi thought it was arrogance, because Leo stands all elegant and demure, drawn all in graceful, sweeping lines, tall and somehow otherworldly, making Takumi feel thick and small and clumsy and loud. But now Takumi sees how straight and tight his friend holds himself. jumpiness in his shoulders, his movements twitchy, his eyes always sweeping to side to side, glancing around. 

It's the kind of thing Takumi's seen in deer, particularly deer being hunted.

So Takumi's scared.

And Leo only really seems relaxed when he's asleep, and Takumi's not gonna interrupt that. He already feels guilty for acting antsy and losing lockpicks up Gunter's nose, just when Leo seemed to finally be calm. No, he can figure this out himself.

Forrest chirps, triumphant. Takumi looks up and realizes the magpie has managed to get one foot around a nail embedded in the roof, and is now waving his good wing around.

“You're gonna hurt yourself,” Takumi hisses at the bird. Forrest chirps and has absolutely no shame.

Takumi harrumphs and, bracing himself against the wall, leans up onto his toes. His fingers brush the rafters. Maybe he can climb them? Like monkey bars. 

He curls his finger around the wood and hauls himself up.

\---

Takumi sleeps only fitfully after he catches Forrest, his hands and feet full of splinters, and he's wide awake when Leo groans and stirs beneath him.

He pushes the exhaustion and residual fear away and leans over the side of his bed and grins. “Hey.”

Leo, hair turned gold and glimmering in the sunlight, long fingers curled into his pillow, looks at him with dark and bleary eyes.

Takumi's okay with this, he decides. He can be restless, Leo can be jumpy, so long as they can have moments like this, soft and fragile, with sunlight pooling between the two of them, the breathing of the sleeping people around them, with Leo looking up at him, tired and grouchy but paying attention.

He beams. “Nothing.”

Leo scowls and rubs his eyes, groaning, and Takumi snickers.


End file.
